I've been thinking about moving to the Netherlands too. I spent four nights in Amsterdam this past summer. On the second night I realized that I
was destined to live there one day. It's a lot more difficult then one would think. Land is expensive, due to the fact that most of the country is
water. Work is hard to come by, for someone like me(a student with no degree yet). And Dutch is a weird language, lol. I figured I would be able to
understand it, I speak German fluently, but when I got there everything sounded different then it looked. I could read some of the words, but
understanding the vernacular was a whole different story. As quoted by the great Doctor Evil, "I don't speak freaky-deaky Dutch!".

I went looking for some info a while back. There's a few sites/companies that specialize in moving to countries, like Holland.
Here's one that I found. I found another one a while back that deals with Holland specifically, I'll try to
find it again.

School is not a big deal. There are international schools in most of the major cities in Europe. I knew a girl who went to an international school
in Munich. She said that all the kids were really nice and so was the staff. She also told me that there are seperate classrooms for seperate
languages. So if you speak English you will be paired up with an english speaking teacher and english speaking students, for the majority of your
school day.

One thing your kids won't like about the schooling is the standards. I'm not 100% sure about Holland, but the schools in Germany have extremely
high standards. Being in the 6th grade over there is like being in the 8th or 9th grade here. Plus they have all year schooling and more grades(goes
to 13 or 14).

I was thinking about tranfering to a University in Regensburg, Germany(right by my grandparents place). Then I looked at the requirments, etc. I
almost craped myself, lol.

The best way is to get a job at an international corporation that will transfer you there and take care of all the paperwork for you. I have friends
in Amsterdam and have looked into doing this myself, and it's not really easy to do legally unless you already have a job lined up.

Hmmm.. you could also find contacts in the netherlands who can tell you something about it... like me.

First off, why do you want to live in the Netherlands? It's not as awesome as it looks to be. Sure we have a laidback government and stuff, but
really tell me, why do you want to live here? Cause I think Holland is rather boring

Second.. some people already mentioned that finding a job will be difficult, now that's true. I must say, everyone speaks a few words English here,
but still you'd be better off if you know some of the Dutch basics... oh yeah, don't EVER compare Dutch to German, cause we don't like to be
compared to them. I oftenly see TV shows where people see my country as as German state/province, that's stupid.

Third, I'll have to warn you for the Dutch citizens, because not everone is as nice as they look... sure, in the big city's the people will always
be nice to foreigners, but when you go to the rural provinces, noone will like mr american

. My suggestion is to try and build your life around one
of the major Dutch cities:
1. Amsterdam (capital)
2. The Hague (city of government)
3. Rotterdam (business capital, second largest port in the world)
4. Utrecht ( The oldest city of the four I just mentioned)

Your best of in one of those places, my suggestion is Rotterdam, there are a lot of immigrants here anyway (especcialy from Morocco, Turkey and
Jugoslavia) and it's my birth and living place

Well, that's just some basic info, if you want to know more i suggest a website like mentioned by other people in this thread, but feel free to mail
me if you want to hear the word from the native... dennis_e1989@hotmail.com

Oh yeah, one more thing, if you want to go and live succesfully here, you better stop liking Baseball, Icehockey etc. and start loving Soccer!!!!

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